


I'll Just Lay Here With You

by flowerslut



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Dying Main Character, F/M, Not-so-suddenly Human, Quarantine, Songfic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27398407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerslut/pseuds/flowerslut
Summary: Alice and Jasper face mortality together.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Jalice Week 2020





	I'll Just Lay Here With You

Twenty-nine days ago they were celebrating.

Birthdays weren’t something they acknowledged often. After Bella had been with them for a decade, their newest vampire had firmly put her foot down. She’d barely tolerated them as a human, but as an immortal being she’d _loathed_ the parties.

Thankfully, there was still Renesmee and her milestones to keep track of. Of course, she hadn’t changed much since her eighth birthday, but apparently even human-vampire hybrids weren’t immune to the desire for a Sweet Sixteen.

Jasper had never seen Alice so elated to have someone so willing to plan a celebration with her. And she and Rosalie had once spent three years planning one of Rose and Emmett’s more elaborate weddings.

It started with a vision.

Turning the knob on the stove, Jasper cut the heat, ignoring the way his throat burned at the aroma that was wafting through the kitchen. It had been embarrassing, having to listen to Carlisle and Bella give him step by step instructions on how to light the gas stove over the phone, but if Alice had witnessed him struggle in a passing vision, she neglected to mention it to him.

He checked his phone then, knowing that no messages awaited him, but still hoping for a notification nonetheless. Someone would be dropping off more supplies today, and he needed to know where exactly to go in order to receive them.

He couldn’t risk interacting with any of his family directly. Not until they figured out what was going on.

It started with a vision.

Jasper reached forward, grabbing the canister from the boiling water, and began to wipe it dry. He knew it was warm enough due to smell alone. He hadn’t once used the food thermometer they’d stuck in their last delivery. While Alice’s condition _had_ worsened, it hadn’t gotten so bad that she’d be at risk of being burnt.

He eyed a bag on the kitchen table, and at the assortment of crazy straws poking against the plastic, and rolled his eyes as he exited the room. Leave it to Emmett to try to find something to joke about with the situation.

He’d been pissed at the bonus items during _that_ particular delivery—surely Edward and Rosalie hadn’t known Emmett was sneaking some extras into the package—but it had made Alice crack a real, genuine smile.

And those were so hard to come by now.

It started with a vision.

Twenty nine days ago they’d been celebrating Renesmee’s birthday. That included balloons and streamers and cake and human food and _humans_ and an assortment of emotion that, by the party’s conclusion, had given Jasper whiplash. The headache he had that day didn’t ebb until late that night. Alice had been too preoccupied with clean-up to notice.

And Jasper had been too preoccupied with his headache to notice when Alice’s emotions caused the climate of the house to take a nosedive.

Walking through room after room Jasper eventually reached the stairs and began to slowly climb, focusing hard on the low buzz of the equipment running upstairs. With every step his misery intensified until he was struggling to keep the emotion at bay. Whether it was a good thing or not, Alice was too out of it most days to be able to tell.

Still, he didn’t want to slip up and accidentally _physically_ share his current emotions with her.

“Jazz?” He heard her voice call when he was halfway up the stairs. And when her panic struck him he cleared the rest of the staircase in an instant.

“I’m right here,” he spoke, the canister already resting on the nightstand as he reached out for her, hyperaware of all the wires as he maneuvered her into an embrace. “Just wanted to get you something to drink.” Pulling back he focused intently on her face. Her eyes hadn’t been golden in days, despite the regular meals he supplied her with. Instead, her eyes were slowly darkening, a brown amber color taking over.

Her sigh of relief sounded more like a rasp, and when her face scrunched up in pain, Jasper felt his entire being _ache_. Reaching forward he readjusted the oxygen tube on her face, resting his hand firmly against her cheek as he watched her squeeze her eyes tight and focus on taking a few long, even breaths.

She felt just slightly warmer than she had the day before. The temporal thermometer that lay within the nightstand was suddenly at the forefront of his mind. Another one of the tools Carlisle had armed him with in their first supply drop off. Jasper had refused to grab the device until someone (Rosalie) explicitly and _unkindly_ asked him what her temperature was that day.

He didn’t want to think about how she was warming every day.

“Let’s sit you up,” Jasper spoke quietly as he moved, pulling her fragile body into a sitting position against the headboard, tucking the blankets snuggly around her as she blinked herself into awareness.

“How long was I out?” She rasped again, wincing as she shifted. Lifting a hand she scratched at her ear. The hair had grown _infinitesimally_ over the past several weeks, but it was one of Alice’s biggest complaints. After living a hundred years with her hair the exact same, the instant it began to grow she’d panicked.

And Jasper had added another thing to the list of symptoms she was experiencing.

“Only a couple of hours,” he moved back toward the night stand, retrieving the canister. “This is the last of it,” he commented as she accepted the stainless steel canister with her bare hands. Barely a second later she was wincing, the container falling to the blankets that were lying across her lap.

Jasper had grabbed it and returned it to the table in an instant. “ _Alice!_ ”

“I’m fine,” Alice hissed, holding her shaking hands to her chest “It’s not hot, I swear. Seriously,” then, she showed him her palms. They didn’t appear to look any different than usual, but still, Jasper was mortified. Maybe he _should’ve_ been using the culinary thermometer after all… “Jasper. It’s fine,” she assured him between hurried breaths. “I’m not burnt or anything. It just really hurts to grip things today.”

“I’m sorry,” he still apologized quietly, knowing how much she hated hearing the words from him. “I didn’t know.”

“Another symptom for Carlisle,” she half-smiled, and Jasper felt his heart clench at the sight. Those smiles never reached her eyes.

Twenty-nine days ago Alice had been putting stringed lights back into storage containers when the first vision struck. Jasper had been distracted, up in his study, re-reading one of his many comfort books to try and curb the pain in his skull.

Jasper never felt Alice’s initial shock. What he felt was Edward’s powerful fear, and acute mortification.

By the time Jasper was in the living room, Alice was screaming.

Picking the canister back up, Jasper moved to sit back on the bed besides Alice. But when she saw what he was about to do she lifted up a hand, placing it against his arm. “Jazz, no. It’s fine. Give me a few minutes and I can do it myself.”

“I can help,” he insisted, his words quiet as he prepared to hold his breath and twist the canister open.

The human blood was a new addition to her diet. One that Carlisle had suggested after her body had rejected animal blood for the second time. She’d been wholly unable to hunt since the beginning, but she’d still been able to drink from whatever animal Jasper could grab that day.

When her teeth began to, quite literally, lose their edge, their family had been forced to improvise. Jasper didn’t know how they’d attained the initial bags of animal blood, but he was thankful for their efforts. He’d ruined the carpet in the den attempting to exsanguinate a deer, and had only salvaged less than a pint for her. After that, Carlisle had figured something out.

The first time she’d been sick—the animal blood violently expelling itself from her tiny body from the way it came, and ruining the couch in his study—was the first night she slept. Jasper called Carlisle, hysterical and screaming, thinking that whatever was happening had finally killed her.

She’d woken up less than ten minutes later, disoriented but alive. That had been two weeks ago, and Jasper hadn’t left her side for more than ten minutes since, even for a supply pickup.

“You said it’s the last of it,” Alice spoke, her frown deepening when Jasper fully screwed the lid off the bottle, “does that mean it’s a supply day?”

He nodded as he pressed the edge of the container to her mouth and tipped it back, trying hard to look away as she gulped down the blood. His thirst had been killing him the past few days, but he knew that he’d rather starve than deprive Alice of even one drop of sustenance.

 _“Her body is trying to replenish itself,”_ Carlisle theorized to him just the day before over the phone, _“try and pay attention to what blood type she favors. It might become useful information.”_

Her eyes hadn’t changed to red the way he’d expected them to—the way he’d _hoped_ —but instead, every day, they darkened slightly, more orange-ish brown than anything.

It was an _almost_ -human color.

Twenty-nine days ago they’d been celebrating. And then Jasper was in the living room and Alice was shrieking, demanding that everyone get _out_ and that no one come near her and that they _get out_ _now_ and _leave_.

_“Alice,” Jasper had flickered to her side, terrified at the emotions coming from her. But she’d pushed him away so hard he put a dent in the wall, the wood and plaster crumbling beneath his back._

_“No!” She’d sobbed, “Stay away! Edward! Get them out! Explain later! Go, now!”_

_But even Edward, who knew what she was thinking and who had seen what she’d seen, couldn’t bring his feet to move. “Alice, hold on a second.”_

_Jasper felt Alice’s emotions blank and then come back full-force; it was the tell-tale sign of another vision stealing her attention. And when Edward’s terror trumped Alice’s, Jasper found himself staring helplessly at the redhead._

_“Go,” the boy turned toward the family and barked the orders, “everyone get out, now.”_

_“What is it?” Jasper demanded, his frustration mounting. He trusted Alice with his life, but he’d never felt a heartbreaking fear like this from her before. “What’s going on?”_

_“Jasper,” Edward yelled as Esme and Bella—who had come to see what the commotion was about—ran off with Renesmee. Emmett and Carlisle were on a hunt and wouldn’t be back for a few hours. “I’ll explain later, we have to go.”_

_But when Jasper tried to approach Alice again—he’d leave as long as she was by his side—she screamed at him, backing away like a frightened animal._

_“NO! Don’t come near me!”_

_“Jasper! Stop! Let’s go!”_

_“I’m not leaving until someone tells me what’s going on!” His heart broke as Alice looked at him with fear in her eyes. But as an empath, he knew she wasn’t afraid of him as much as she was afraid at what she’d seen._

_“Jazz, please, please, please don’t come near me,” Alice begged as he slowly approached anyways. And the closer he got to Alice the farther Edward inched toward the back doors, his terror permeating the room._

_“Alice, please…”_

_“You have to go before it’s too late.”_

_“Jasper, stand back!”_

_“I’m not leaving you,” Jasper spoke directly to Alice, barely an arms-length away now. “Whatever is going on, I’m not leaving you here.” Whether the Volturi were coming for her, or whether some freak natural disaster was set to swallow their neighborhood whole, he didn’t care. He’d rather die than leave Alice to face whatever it was that she and Edward were so terrified of currently._

_“I can’t let you,” she shook her head firmly, her expression full of devastation as she backed up against the far wall. “Jasper, please, I don’t want you to get sick.”_

_“Sick?”_

_And when thick, silver liquid began to stream down Alice’s face, venom pooling in her eyes, Jasper’s entire world shifted._

_By the time Jasper reached forward, wiping the venom from her face and confirming that yes, this was real, and no, this was not good, Edward had vanished, running after their family into the dead of night._

_“No,” Alice sobbed, shaking her head as Jasper gathered her up in his arms, “No, not you, too. I don’t want you to die, too.”_

“Please hunt today,” Alice spoke after Jasper recapped the now-empty canister. “ _Please_. When you go to get the next shipment. I can’t stand to see you like this.” Reaching out she rested her hand against his cheek, her thumb brushing the bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes as she gazed at him with love and concern.

Jasper shook his head. “Carlisle is sending some more animal blood with the next one, that way I don’t have to leave the house.”

“That’s not going to be enough to sustain you,” Alice frowned, pulling her hand back into her lap. Jasper didn’t miss the way she was lightly massaging her palm. Even the slight affections she showed him pained her now.

“I’ll make it work.”

“How are you supposed to take care of me if you can’t take care of yourself?” The words were gentle, but they struck Jasper like a physical blow.

“I’ll take care of you no matter what.”

Alice sighed, and then there was a pause. “I can’t see them.”

He stared at her blankly, waiting for her too elaborate. “Who?”

“Anyone. I can’t see Carlisle or Esme. Or Bella or,” her voice cracked, “or anyone. I’m even struggling to see you now.”

Jasper nodded calmly, not wanting any of his reactions to worry her further. He would have a moment to himself soon enough. “And your dreams?”

“They’re getting a little less fuzzy. But Jazz,” and her fear in that moment was very real, “if I can’t pull visions up the way I used to, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

And truthfully, he didn’t know what they were going to do either.

They didn’t know what was eating away at Alice or what sickness she was afflicted with. They don’t know what caused it or how it had struck her. The only thing they knew—and only because of Alice’s first few visions—was that there was a chance it was contagious, and it would very likely kill her.

He’d kissed her through her tears after the third day, when she finally confessed that she very likely had sentenced him to death just with her proximity alone.

But Jasper would walk through the fires of hell day in and day out if it meant he wouldn’t be leaving Alice to face this sickness alone. Whether he lived or died he didn’t care. And if Alice _did_ die… well… he could only hope it was as contagious as they feared…

Leaning forward he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Alice tilted her head up, lifting a hand to hold his face still so she could plant her own kiss firmly on his lips.

“I love you,” he spoke softly against her lips before kissing her again, “and even if the visions go, you’ll still have me.”

“I’m scared,” she whispered, and when Jasper focused back on her expression, he realized her eyes were closed tight again. Setting the empty canister on the bed-side table, Jasper was careful as he climbed into the bed to lie alongside her. He didn’t want to unplug a single wire.

The electrocardiograph wasn’t registering anything—as it _shouldn’t_ ; Alice’s heart had been still for a century now—but Carlisle wanted her hooked up to the device regardless.

 _“Just in case,_ ” the other man had said over the phone as Jasper had sorted through that delivery. “ _I know you don’t want to hear this, but if she continues to display more symptoms like this, she may be human before the new year.”_

Jasper pushed the memory from his mind as he pulled Alice close, allowing her to snuggle closely, still wrapped tightly in layers of blankets. Even with the thermostat on 80, Alice shivered day in and out.

The wetness that dampened the collar of his shirt made his heart ache.

They remained like that, lying next to one another as Alice’s oxygen concentrator hummed. Jasper hated how he just _knew_ she was warmer. Not as warm as humans were, but even through the layers separating them he could feel the warmth of her body.

She wasn’t indestructible anymore, and Jasper didn’t know how to handle that. Even with her body pressed tight against his, he worried. What if one day he kissed her and hurt her? Or if he squeezed her hand to comfort her and broke her fingers?

He could finally feel some measure of empathy for Edward while he’d been dating Bella all those years ago. The fear of hurting her was prominent in his every move.

Her cardiovascular system was still in limbo, and even as her body warmed and her cheeks slowly filled with color after every meal, her heart was still not beating. Against all odds though, her lungs were operating normally. No longer could Alice simply sit, not thinking about how her lungs didn’t require oxygen unless she needed to speak.

The day that symptom presented itself, she’d gasped for hours, uncomfortable and panicking. Jasper had been on the phone with Carlisle, desperate for guidance, and in hours they’d delivered the necessary equipment.

Hooking up the machine and wrapping the oxygen tube around his wife’s delicate face had made Jasper feel insane. As if this wasn’t real, and he was hallucinating this.

It had felt like the beginning of the end.

Eventually, he pressed a kiss to her head and left the room with the promise to return quickly.

He answered his buzzing phone as he flitted down the stairs.

“I’m on my way.” He spoke without looking to see who it was.

“Carlisle wants you to bring the empty oxygen canisters.”

It was Edward. Jasper shook his head at the request. “I have no way of cleaning them. And even if I do sanitize them I don’t want to risk it.”

Whatever it was that was warming Alice and that he potentially carried, Jasper didn’t want it transferring to any of his family.

“Just bring them. We can leave them to sit for a couple of weeks and then one of us will bring them back.” Edward commented.

Jasper sighed, already half-way out the front door, before turning back to the kitchen. “I don’t have time for this,” he growled impatiently into the phone. The tanks were unnecessary now that Alice was on a concentrator. Jasper thought it was a stupid risk but he’d been low on patience for days now and wasn’t about to argue now.

Grabbing a single empty tank he turned back and was out the door in an instant.

“Where are you?” Jasper spoke into the receiver.

“At the end of the driveway.”

Jasper paused at that, his feet grinding to a halt in the grass. He was suddenly reminded of the last time he’d met up one of them at the end of the driveway, two and a half weeks prior. “You better be alone.” It was dangerous enough for him to interact with any of his family members even at a distance, but whenever they showed up in groups it ignited his anger.

As far as Carlisle was aware, everyone else was either asymptomatic or simply wasn’t sick like Alice. But Jasper wasn’t about to be the one that passed… _this_ on to their family.

“I am,” Edward snapped back, as if Jasper’s words, and not just his ability, could inspire a quick jump to irritation. “I couldn’t exactly carry everything in this shipment. Forgive me for bringing a car.”

Jasper hung up the phone then and made off quickly toward the end of their long driveway. It was a quick run, but Jasper was looking forward to getting this exchange over with. Edward was already wasting precious seconds by requesting an old oxygen tank. He wasn’t about to waste anymore time arguing with the younger vampire.

He saw the car before he saw Edward. It was a deep green color with a matte finish. Jasper could tell just by looking at it that this must’ve been the pet project Rosalie had taken up after they’d left for their Baltimore house back further east.

 _“She needs anything to focus on that’s not this,_ ” Emmett’s words, like always, lacked proper tact, but while Jasper had glared at his brother over the FaceTime call, Alice had nodded understandably.

A car like this would surely stick out like a sore thumb in Martinsburg.

When the car door opened, Edward’s voice rang out. “She’s already moved on to another one. This one is going in storage after this drop off.”

Jasper didn’t nod, but he did watch carefully as his brother began to quietly empty the contents of the trunk of the car onto the pavement. A few large crates, and some smaller paper bags. When Jasper inhaled deeply, he furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Food?”

Edward closed the trunk and turned back toward Jasper, his expression grim. “Carlisle thinks it might help.”

“Help _how_?” It didn’t even matter that Jasper didn’t know the first damn thing about making and preparing human food. And it was irrelevant that oftentimes just the _smell_ of human food left Jasper in a foul mood. What mattered was that having to feed his wife human food felt like another insane task he’d been given, and he didn’t know how the _fuck_ he was supposed to just nod and go along with it all.

“I’m sure you can guess.” Even though they were standing quite far apart—at least ten meters—Jasper could clearly see the frustrated furrow of Edward’s brow. Jasper knew he hadn’t been the most pleasant person to interact with over the past month—it was one of the reasons Rosalie elected to tinker in her garage instead of sit on calls or volunteer for supply drop-offs, and it was why Esme had done one, and only one.

But Jasper wasn’t looking to snap at anyone today. He simply wanted to get what he needed (although today’s delivery would take a couple of trips) and go back home to his ailing wife.

“Are her visions still wavering?”

Jasper forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. Looking away from Edward, he instead stared at the grocery bags piled beside the crates. “They’re nearly gone. She can only see me while awake, and others when she sleeps.”

Edward nodded, and Jasper hated how he knew the boy was digging through his thoughts, collecting images of Alice’s deteriorating, weakening body, and hearing the very real doubts Jasper had currently. Jasper gestured to the tank he was holding. “What do you want me to do with this? I’m not giving it to you.”

“Just toss it over there,” he gestured vaguely to a patch of bushes beside the driveway. “I or Emmett or whoever will pick it up in a couple of weeks.”

Jasper tossed the heavy item to the side without a second glance, his eyes still trained on the supplies. “Is there…?”

“Human and animal blood, yes.” Edward tapped the crate in the front with a foot.

Jasper nodded, swallowing the venom that pooled in his mouth, knowing that he’d be able to drink soon. When surprise and curiosity pulsated off of the boy, Jasper finally met his eyes. “What?”

“You seem fine.” Edward observed with half of a shrug. “I mean, physically. There’s a chance this actually isn’t contagious—”

“Stop,” _Now._ Jasper would turn and go straight back to the house without another word if Edward kept it up. With his fury just hiding beneath the surface, Jasper thought pointedly. _Alice knew her visions would fail. Alice knew you guys would want to come help. But as long as we have those few, early visions of hers we need to be careful. I can handle things over here. When Carlisle finishes analyzing her venom and finds actual fucking answers, let me know. Until they, stay put. I’m fine, and I’m handling things._ “Don’t you dare put yourselves in danger. Not until we figure this out.”

The two stared at each other for a few long seconds before Jasper felt himself start to get antsy. He’d only been away from the house for barely more than five minutes, but the more time passed the more afraid he was that Alice would fall asleep and wake again, scared and disoriented, with him nowhere in sight.

“I’ll go,” Edward finally nodded toward the house as he walked back toward the driver’s side and opened the door. “Please text Carlisle her temperature when you get back. And yesterday’s summary, too. Please, Jasper. We’re doing our best.”

And with that, he climbed into the car, started the quiet engine, and pulled off. Jasper waited until the car pulled around a bend in the distance, a thick patch of trees obscuring the vehicle from sight before he ran forward and grabbed the first crate, and in seconds he was rushing back toward the house.

He was still several hundred meters from the house when the sound of hacking reached his ears. Jasper nearly dropped the crate to the ground as he rushed through the front door and flickered up the stairs and into Alice’s bedroom, only to find her crumbled in a heap on the floor, wheezing and coughing.

“Hey, hey,” he swept her up into his arms quickly, wondering why on _Earth_ she’d decided to pluck all the electrodes off and find herself a spot on the floor, far from her oxygen. But before he could ask what she was doing, he felt the dampness that covered her thin flannel pajamas and his heart broke.

Her gasping came from her attempts at crying without her oxygen tube. Jasper maneuvered her back onto the bed—being aware to avoid the wet spot in the center of the bedding—and placed the tube around her head, shushing her.

Two hours, one bath, and a change of bedding later, Alice was fast asleep in the bed, her hand limply clinging to Jasper’s as he typed a long text with one hand.

 **Things are worse** , he began the text. **I don’t know what to do.**

It started with a vision.

On day thirty-two, Alice ate her first human meal she could ever recall. It wasn’t much; a thin soup that he’d unpacked and warmed from the last shipment. She sipped it slowly, getting some of it down her front. It was hard, she admitted quietly to Jasper, to use a spoon when all she had ever known was biting down on flesh and sucking down blood with force.

She’d managed to eat a single cracker before breaking down in tears, broken up over the very fact that it didn’t taste entirely repulsive to her anymore.

On day thirty-four, Jasper picked up another shipment. Emmett was in a somber mood as he dropped the small delivery off. Groceries for Alice, mainly.

“Tell me you have any news at all.”

Jasper raised an eyebrow at that, watching from a distance as his adopted brother shuffled and frowned. Sadness never suited Emmett, who was one of the brightest personalities Jasper had ever known; the guy had radiated positivity ever since the former-solder had known him.

“I don’t.”

Emmett shrugged at that, and Jasper hated how the taller man’s mood dampened further at those words. “Well, they always say no news is good news.”

Jasper met his sad golden gaze with a severe one of his own. “If I had good news we wouldn’t be doing this, Emmett.”

On day thirty-five, while Jasper read aloud to her, Alice accidentally scratched herself. Much like her hair, her nails were also beginning to grow at a snail’s pace. Along with that, they were more brittle than she was used to. While reaching over and adjusting the zipper to Jasper’s jacket she’d broken a nail, chipping the edge slightly. Then, she’d reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her head, scratching the now-delicate skin on her face.

It didn’t bleed, but Jasper could still smell the blood, resting idly beneath the surface.

On day thirty-seven they finally sat down and acknowledged what was happening. Jasper refused to say the word ‘human’ but Alice spoke it with a sad resignation, knowing that her body was somehow de-petrifying. “I don’t know if I’ll survive,” she whispered to him as he held her closely, tracing soothing shapes against her back. “In some visions it all ends here, in this bed. In others I can see myself all warm and pink, but the visions don’t go much farther than that, no matter what I do.

“I’m almost positive that I die, Jazz.” She whispered into the silent room. It remained silent for a while after that conversation, until Alice quietly informed Jasper that she needed to use the restroom, and he carried her out of the room, his mind still miles away.

On day forty-one, Alice’s temperature spiked. She slept seventeen hours that day, shivering for most of it, and crying out occasionally, with visions now only plaguing her in her sleep. Jasper held the thermometer against her head and when it registered _96.1_ he threw the device, smashing it to pieces against the far wall of the bedroom. Alice didn’t budge.

On day forty-two, Alice woke up, her memory foggy. “Mom?” She called out, sitting up disoriented before Jasper could plant himself in her line of sight. When she flinched at the sight of him, gasping loudly, her shock smacked Jasper across the face. It took several long seconds for her to calm herself, recognition registering to Jasper before it showed on her face. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, hand against her chest as she struggled to regulate her breathing. “I’m sorry Jasper.”

On day forty-three Alice kissed him, harder than she’d kissed him in over a month. It was when her hands found the first button on his shirt that he stopped her, her name only a warning on his lips.

“Please,” she whispered as she kissed her way down his neck, her hands finding a different button as she pressed herself against him, “Jasper, _please_. I don’t know when we’ll ever be able to again.”

On day forty-three Alice and Jasper spent the entire day in bed. They’d pause in their lovemaking periodically for Alice to use the restroom, or eat a meal, or take a nap, and then resume in between. Jasper was used to handling her with care, but now it truly felt like his wife was made of glass. He was as careful as he dared, knowing that the second he hurt her in his passion would be the end of their physical relationship as far as either of them knew it.

It was early in the morning when Alice kissed him firmly and pulled away with a wince. “I think I need to stop,” and something akin to perspiration was beginning to gather on her forehead, her growing hair sticking to it firmly, “I’m… aching.”

And then, that was that.

On day forty-five she woke up with wide-eyes and was immediately unresponsive. Jasper spent several horrifically long minutes talking to her, checking her vitals, gently massaging and tapping her shoulders and limbs, trying to get her to come back to him, to speak, to do anything other than lie there, stare, and breathe.

He was seconds away from giving up and sending another hysterical phone call Carlisle’s way when she blinked twice and lifted her hand up, blindly reaching toward him.

“Alice, Alice, oh thank God,” Jasper pressed her warm hand against his cheek, inhaling slowly in order to collect himself and prevent his ability from affecting her. “It’s okay, it’s…”

But when Alice forced her eyes to look at him—warm, dark brown eyes—Jasper froze as he felt her wipe wetness from his cheeks.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered as he jerked back, his hands wiping the venom from his face with a panic.

For two days, Jasper’s gift was hard to control. Meaning that now, to his complete and utter dismay, Alice was just as miserable as he was.

It wasn’t that he cared about being a vampire. Sure, the power it supplied him with to protect Alice and his family was something he wouldn’t trade for anything, and with Alice slowly reverting back into a human he felt comforted that at the very _least_ he could keep her safe.

But how was he supposed to protect her from all the dangers that were out there when he, too, would be human in time?

Forty-seven days after their family ran and they barricaded themselves in the house, confined to their West Virginia property, Alice broke.

“I wanted you to run,” she sobbed with all her might, yanking wires and throwing anything she could get her hands on across the room. “I wanted you to go with them. I didn’t want you to die, too. It’s my fault this is happening, it’s all my fault.”

She wouldn’t let Jasper anywhere near her that day. Even when she slept, her emotions were a turbulent storm, making it difficult for Jasper to even sit at her bedside while she tossed and turned and shivered.

On day forty-eight Alice spent the day apologizing profusely. For everything and anything under the sun. Jasper simply shook his head, kissed away her tears, and held her close. All while assuring her that she had nothing to apologize for.

It wasn’t her fault they were dying, after all.

On day fifty-eight, Jasper had a sobering phone call with Carlisle and Edward.

“ _I reached out to Aro,_ ” and Carlisle didn’t even pause in his sentence when Jasper hissed ferociously, “ _to see if he could provide any help, or any answers._ ”

“ _If anyone wants Alice alive as much as we do, it’s Aro, Jasper._ Stop _,_ ” Edward spoke up loudly. And although the boy couldn’t hear Jasper’s thoughts he had decades of knowledge of his inner-thought process to know precisely where this conversation was heading. “ _It wasn’t anything we wanted to do, with Alice as weak as she is—_ ”

“ _She said so herself_ ,” Carlisle chimed in, not giving Jasper time to verbalize a response, “ _she doesn’t think she’ll make it out of this. And with you sick, too, we aren’t left with many other options_.”

“ _The Volturi have far more resources than we could ever dream of having,_ ” Edward spoke. “ _If this is something that’s ever been documented before, they’ll be able to find it._ ”

“ _But as far as Aro is aware, he’s never heard of anything like this happening before. Especially something that can be contracted by other vampires, too. We’re all in the dark here._ ”

Jasper refused to update them on his own state that day. It was bad enough that Alice had gone behind his back—quite literally—and texted Carlisle that Jasper’s first symptoms had begun to materialize the other day, but he didn’t want anyone’s attention on him. Alice was the priority. Alice would _always_ be the priority, and Jasper refused to give any information to his family on his own state entirely.

But still, he knew that Alice was very likely texting Esme right now while he listened to Edward and Carlisle prattle on about their research and findings, and about how ultimately, they’d come up with no solutions.

If Alice died, Jasper knew he wouldn’t have to wait for this sickness to kill him in order to join her.

And with this thought it was as if Edward was truly there, in person. “ _Jasper. Hang in there. We’re going to figure something out,_ ” the boy insisted after a length of silence had fallen across the line. “ _Don’t do anything foolish._ ”

On day sixty, she fell asleep and didn’t wake up.

Jasper sat by her bedside and waited. After the first day, he called Carlisle, only for Esme to pick up the phone and ask him what was wrong. The sound of her voice, so caring and full of love, caused him to finally break down. He found himself crying venomous tears for nearly an hour as he listened to her soothing words.

“ _The best thing you can do is stay with her_ ,” she said eventually. “ _Talk to her maybe. If its anything like our transformations, she can likely hear you. Tell her you love her, and stay close._ ”

So that’s what he did. For the entirety of that second day, when he wasn’t on the phone with a member of their family, he sat at her bedside and talked. About her. About their relationship. About how devastated he was that this illness had struck her. He reminisced out loud about their first meeting, his many regrets, and about how even though now human blood had been introduced back into his diet (his body had begun to reject animal blood days ago) it felt completely and utterly ridiculous that it was what had driven him to madness time and time again.

He talked about how much he loved her. About how she was everything to him. The reason for his attempts at interacting with the public, the reason he abstained from human blood in the first place, and the reason he consistently pushed through his thirst. She was the reason he’d stopped hating his appearance, scars still prominent on every inch of his skin. She was the reason he’d given peace a chance, and the reason he now had a family to call his own.

She’d given him everything beyond what he could have ever hoped for in this cursed afterlife of his, and he told her such as she lay there, the only movement coming from her chest slowly and steadily rising and falling. He talked more that day than he’d spoken in a long, long time.

“I suppose all that ‘playing human’ should’ve helped us out better for this, huh?” He spoke out loud into an empty room sometime after midnight on the second day. “You’d think it would’ve prepared us for something crazy like this, instead of sending us to the brink of hopelessness.”

On the third day, Alice’s temperature skyrocketed, registering a fever that Jasper could do nothing to break. He cycled through damp rags, always keeping a cool, fresh one pressed against the burning skin of her forehead, being careful not to bump any of the wires, old and new.

Carlisle had to talk him through the insertion of the IV the night before. Now that her body required human food and water, Carlisle explained that it was vital in keeping her healthy and alive. Still, it had felt alien to poke at her skinny, fragile arm, looking around for a vein that hadn’t pumped blood in over a hundred years.

Eventually he placed it somewhere Carlisle—who’d been video called to assist—approved, but even still, Alice did not budge.

On the third day, Jasper climbed into bed with her and carefully pulled her close to him. His own temperature wasn’t as cool as it once was, but he hoped that even in her unconscious state it would help to soothe her somewhat. He closed his eyes and focused hard on her slow, even breaths, combined with the low buzz of her oxygen concentrator.

And in minutes Jasper was asleep for the first time since the nineteenth century.

He woke up with a start, mind immediately aware of Alice’s prone form beside him as he moved himself up and out of the bed. His entire body was shaking as his mind caught up with what was happening. His entire head felt foggy but despite not having slept in well over a century he _knew_ that something had woken him up.

It started with a vision.

On day sixty-three Alice’s heart began to beat.

It was a slow, steady rhythm. With one hand Jasper quickly dialed Carlisle and with another he reached out, resting his fingers against her wrist as he counted the beats. Feeling a pulse flutter beneath his fingers didn’t help to combat the dizziness Jasper was still fighting, but he knew that he had to pay close attention. Alice’s life—Alice with her beating heart and blood-filled cheeks and her fragile skin and bones—now hung in the balance.

“It’s beating,” he spoke in lieu of a greeting, “her heart. It just started back up. About,” he focused for a few seconds, “seventeen beats per minute. She still isn’t awake, but she… there’s a _pulse_.”

“ _Oh my—hold on; Grandpa_!” A familiar voice yelled in the background of the call, and Jasper’s dizziness increased as he realized Renesmee had answered Carlisle’s phone. “ _Mom! Aunt Rosie! Where’s Grandpa! It’s an emergency! Uncle Jasper says—_ ”

“ _What’s going on?_ ” Rosalie was on the phone immediately, and Jasper had to close his eyes and rest his head against the side of the bed as he focused, forcing himself to concentrate on counting Alice’s heart beats. “Jasper?”

“Her heart is beating, Rose,” he spoke miserably. “Not fast. And she’s not awake.”

“ _Ness is getting Carlisle now,_ ” Jasper could _hear_ how it felt like suddenly Rosalie was moving around quickly. “ _What’s her respiratory rate?_ ”

Jasper looked up then, eyeing the silent machines with confusion. Horror fell over him when he realized that not only were they silent, not even registering Alice’s slow pulse, but they were completely shut off. It wasn’t something he’d noticed before he fell asleep. He’d been too preoccupied with fussing over her unconsciousness and babbling on about nothing to notice.

There was no way he’d unplugged anything, on accident or even on purpose. In fact, the last time he’d recalled the bright numbers and words being lit on either of the machines was—

“ _I hate that beeping,”_ Alice had commented the day before she’d lost consciousness, “ _it’s so disturbing. Can’t we set it up to only alarm when things_ are _working, instead of when they’re not?_ ”

In an instant he’d rounded the bed and lifted the chords attached to the machines, finding them unplugged from the wall. In seconds they were plugged back in and Jasper was quickly examining Alice, ensuring that everything was hooked up properly.

At the sound of Rosalie still demanding things through the phone that he’d abandoned on the bed, Jasper reached out and pressed the speaker button. “She unplugged everything. I just—give me a minute.”

And the instant the machines began to register her vitals, the alarms began to blare.

“ _Her blood pressure isn’t going to register normally, but you have to pay attention to her heart and respiratory rates. If she’s human now you can’t let either of them drop down below what they are now. Do you hear me Jasper? Jasper!”_

“I hear you,” he spoke miserably as he watched Alice’s chest rise and fall.

“ _The instant they begin to dip you say something. Now, whatever you do now you’re not going to get off this phone, you hear me?”_

“Yeah,” he rasped, feeling the sting of tears begin to pull to the surface, “I won’t.”

Then, there was shuffling in the background and Carlisle was on the line. “ _I heard the news. Just stay on the line Jasper. Is your thirst manageable?_ ”

“I’m not going to fucking hurt her,” he snapped, his nerves wound up so tightly that he couldn’t even hold the words back before they were being spat. “Forget me, Carlisle, how do I keep her alive?”

“ _Keep her heart beating, and if anything at all changes, you say something. Now, go over her vitals for me please._ ”

The next hour felt like the longest period of time Jasper could recall in his entire existence. He swore that the minutes ticked by like hours. He didn’t touch the phone once. It sat just where he left it on the edge of the bed, and sat at Alice’s side, listening and watching her with an unstoppable focus. Of course he registered the sound of his family talking, even if he wasn’t registering their words half of the time. Knowing that they were connected was enough to calm him to the point where he could apply his single-minded concentration fully to Alice.

He would do damn near everything he could to keep her alive, her visions be damned.

At some point he acknowledged that her IV bag had been empty for a few hours, which prompted a nearly-ten minute long argument in which Rosalie was demanding—and Carlisle was pleading—for him to leave Alice for a few seconds and go into the next room and retrieve a new one. Eventually he gave in, but only after Rosalie yelled, “ _Don’t be fucking stupid, get it so she doesn’t die and throw your tantrum later_.”

(No matter how angry it made him, deep down he knew she was right.)

“Alice,” he whispered to her as he reached out and caressed her warm face, “how did this happen?” But the only signs of life from her were the slight rise-and-fall of her chest and the beeping of the electrocardiograph. And that was exactly what they were now: signs of _life_.

Jasper himself had been ignoring the uncomfortable feeling that was beginning to plague him whenever he went more than a few seconds without taking a breath. After his first symptoms had appeared he had started forcing himself to breathe normally, timing his breaths along with Alice’s without her noticing. Practicing for the day when his respiratory system would start acting like a human’s again.

He couldn’t even waste time thinking about what it meant to be human again. He couldn’t care about his warming body or the fact that he was weakening more and more every day. The only thing that mattered was that Alice made it out of this _alive_. Everything else was an afterthought. It was all for her.

Jasper didn’t realize his phone had died until Alice’s started ringing. He almost ignored it until he realized it was Carlisle’s number, and when he looked toward his own phone, and the blank, empty screen, he felt foolish as he reached forward and plucked Alice’s phone from her side.

He quickly muttered an apology and an explanation before placing the phone back down on the bed, speaker activated so he could go back to ignoring that device, too. A part of him knew that he should’ve grabbed one of the chargers that was just barely out of arm’s reach, but he didn’t dare move too far from Alice’s side.

He held her hand firmly in his, and waited.

“ _How is she?_ ” Carlisle asked the question the second that the tempo of one of her monitors changed.

“Twenty beats per minute. Her breathing is…”

There was a beat of silence where Jasper stared from Alice’s prone body to the face of the screens on the machines hooked up to her. Something wasn’t right.

And then Alice’s respiratory rate took a nose-dive, alarms started blaring, and all hell broke loose.

There was a flurry of panic on the other side of the phone while Jasper stood fully, hovering helplessly over Alice’s body. This was it, he knew instantly even without ever seeing the vision himself. This was what Alice had foreseen. Her body, pink and fragile and human, slowly deteriorating in this very bed in this very room.

Alice had been wrong. She hadn’t cursed Jasper to his own fate by transferring whatever illness was de-petrifying their stone bodies. The curse itself lay in the fact that Jasper had been foreseen to watch the deterioration and death of the woman he loved more than anything else in the universe.

She had only ever apologized to him for getting him sick, as if that was something that was her fault. As if that were worse than this.

Rosalie’s voice broke through the yelling on the other side.

“ _Jasper! Listen to me! Keep her breathing.”_

He’d watched and read every piece of instruction material Carlisle and Edward had sent his way, so he knew exactly what to do. But performing rescue breathing and watching it be done were two entirely different things. Having to force air into Alice’s lungs was the most agonizing thing he’d done in months.

 _Please don’t die, please don’t die,_ he thought the phrase over and over again as he focused on counting through each breath, being careful to only give her lungs the air they needed and not a bit more. It was after about a minute when he pulled back and actually _looked_ at her, when he began to panic. The color that had been so steadily restored to her face was slowly fading away.

“She’s turning blue,” he shouted at the phone before gently tilting her head back again, plugging her nose, and giving a few more slow breaths, “Carlisle!”

There was chaos across the line and for a moment Jasper was afraid that the call had dropped as silence hung in the air. Then, what sounded like someone picking up a fallen phone. “ _We’re almost there, just hold on_ ,” Esme’s voice spoke quickly.

That’s when the noises behind her began to make sense. The low pur of a car’s engine, the tell-tale sound of a vehicle speeding down the road. Jasper didn’t know how he’d missed the signs.

“No,” he pleaded desperately when he realized what that meant. “You’ll die.”

“ _No we won’t, sweetheart._ ” The smile in her voice nearly brought tears to his eyes. “ _Focus on Alice. It’ll all be okay._ ”

But for several long agonizing minutes he forced air into Alice’s weak lungs, and the alarms still blared. And when her already-weak pulse began to drop, he was beginning to think he’d failed. That he wouldn’t be able to do it. That Alice would be dead and it was all because he couldn’t protect her and—

The noise of glass shattering registered with his senses just as he was mid-breath, his mouth placed around Alice’s as he futilely attempted to bring her back. Hands were on his shoulders and when he was pulled away firmly he could only look up and shudder with relief over the sight of Carlisle and Rosalie working over Alice’s tiny, fragile body.

“I’ve got you man,” it was Emmett, “it’s going to be okay now.”

Jasper shook his head as he stumbled. But Emmett’s arms wrapped were around him from behind and he was pulling the blond backward far enough to give Carlisle and Rosalie space.

“You can’t,” Jasper protested weakly, feeling the tears that he’d been keeping at bay finally begin to spill over, “Alice didn’t want you to come.”

Emmett gave him a good shake, still not releasing him. “Well, too damn bad. Come on.”

Jasper didn’t have the strength to fight him as he was dragged from the room. He was sure that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to. Each day he’d grown weaker and weaker as more and more symptoms presented themselves. But when Emmett tried to force him down the stairs Jasper dug his feet into the carpet as hard as he could. (The fact that it didn’t force the wood to buckle beneath his feet was enough evidence of his own illness.)

“I can’t be far, _please_ , Em.”

The sound of tires screeching to a stop outside of the house bought both of their attention toward the foyer, and when Esme burst through the front door, flickering up the stairs before stopping in front of the men, Jasper felt his knees begin to shake.

They’d surely all die now, too. Carlisle and Rosalie, who were hard at work trying to hook Alice up to whatever new device they’d jumped out of the car to sprint to the house. And Emmett and Esme, who were looking at him as if _he_ were the one made of glass, and the one that was seconds away from shattering.

He wasn’t the one who needed putting back together.

“You’ll die,” he spoke, his voice rough with emotion as Esme reached up and placed her hands on his face, her own expression absolutely broken at the sight of him. “You’re all going to get sick now, too.”

When Esme smiled up at him, he felt his knees buckle. Thankfully, Emmett’s arms still trapping him like a cage kept him standing. “Alice made her choice in trying to keep us safe. Now, we’re making _our_ choice. We aren’t going to leave you two to suffer alone anymore.”

“Carlisle and Rose are going to do whatever they can, man.” Emmett tightened his grip, perhaps sensing that he was the only thing keeping Jasper from hitting the floor.

A loud noise caused their heads to turn back toward Alice’s room and suddenly, there was calm. The only noises now were from the machines that were beeping calmly. And just under all of it, they could all hear the noise of a heartbeat, steady and strong.

“It’s going to be okay,” Esme whispered again when Jasper’s tears started anew. Slowly, Emmett released his grip, lowering Jasper to the ground where Esme wrapped her arms around him. “She’ll be alright. We’ve got you now. It’s alright.”

And the sound of that steady heartbeat was all Jasper could focus on as he buried his face against Esme’s shoulder and cried.

It started with a vision. And now they were past it, and Alice was still alive.

Eventually they helped him walk back into the bedroom, and when he climbed into bed beside Alice—his warm, pink, _human_ wife—they simply let him.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead before grabbing her hand in his and closing his eyes. There would be time to discuss things with his family later, and to acknowledge the weight of what had happened tonight and what had been done. But for now, he laid beside Alice, and Jasper slept.

**Author's Note:**

> And that will do it for Jalice Week 2020! This was took longer to get out for a multitude of reasons, but I hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> Until the next event, make sure to check out some of my WIPs. Including Edge of It All, the fic that started out specifically FOR Jalice Week, and Walk in the Dark, the highly-anticipated sequel to my giant Jalice fic, Call of the Night. Thanks loves.


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